4 Beds / 3.5 Baths
4-car garage
3,518 sq. ft. on 1.15 acres
house backs up to 8 acres of forever wild
MLS # 201407958
Feel free to email me with any questions nikinikinine@yahoo.com
Showing posts with label my home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my home. Show all posts
For Sale By Owner
Hi friends, my home is for sale. If you know someone in the market in the Albany, NY area, please share the information. It's a great house and it deserves a great family. Thank you in advance for reading and sharing.
4 Beds / 3.5 Baths
4-car garage
3,518 sq. ft. on 1.15 acres
house backs up to 8 acres of forever wild
MLS # 201407958
Feel free to email me with any questions nikinikinine@yahoo.com
4 Beds / 3.5 Baths
4-car garage
3,518 sq. ft. on 1.15 acres
house backs up to 8 acres of forever wild
MLS # 201407958
Feel free to email me with any questions nikinikinine@yahoo.com
Hall Gallery
This was one of those projects that took a considerable amount longer than it should have, both because it is hard to hammer on a wall adjacent to a napping child and because it is hard to really get anything done with kids present in general. I started mapping this wall back in March and we just hung the last picture at the beginning of August.
I tried a new way of mapping the wall after seeing a template on Danielle Oakey's blog. I think if you are doing a smaller, less substantial gallery this template would have been great. In our case, there was a lot of cutting little shapes and several frame sizes were missing, so I was making my own shapes too. For all intents and purposes, it was helpful to visually map the wall and see how it might puzzle together though.
What ended up being more helpful once we got upstairs was actually creating a grid on the floor and mapping the frames that way. Using two tape measurers (similar to the template above) I was able to keep the frames we were using in the right spots vertically and horizontally, the same way they'd appear on our walls.
Then I went about it the old-fashioned way, which is to say that I cut out paper the size of each frame and used that on the walls to make sure everything fit before ever touching a hammer or nail. This was super helpful when we got to the smaller side and realized we forgot to account for the light switch.
This was my inspiration, from Interiors Magazine.
And this is a not so great, iphone picture (like all of the other photos in this post! oops, sorry) of what we ended up with. I still have to fill some frames with mats and photos and switch out some older photos for new ones, but the frames are finally off the floor and on the walls.
And for anyone who's wondering -- the kids don't touch the frames at all. They were curious at first, but I don't think they're that interesting to them. Though for the first week they were up, Reese would stop and point out everyone she knew on the wall -- "thas gramma, thas papa, thas nana gray" (her great grandmother that she calls nana gray since she has gray hair...) it was cuteness times infinity.
I tried a new way of mapping the wall after seeing a template on Danielle Oakey's blog. I think if you are doing a smaller, less substantial gallery this template would have been great. In our case, there was a lot of cutting little shapes and several frame sizes were missing, so I was making my own shapes too. For all intents and purposes, it was helpful to visually map the wall and see how it might puzzle together though.
What ended up being more helpful once we got upstairs was actually creating a grid on the floor and mapping the frames that way. Using two tape measurers (similar to the template above) I was able to keep the frames we were using in the right spots vertically and horizontally, the same way they'd appear on our walls.
Then I went about it the old-fashioned way, which is to say that I cut out paper the size of each frame and used that on the walls to make sure everything fit before ever touching a hammer or nail. This was super helpful when we got to the smaller side and realized we forgot to account for the light switch.
This was my inspiration, from Interiors Magazine.
And this is a not so great, iphone picture (like all of the other photos in this post! oops, sorry) of what we ended up with. I still have to fill some frames with mats and photos and switch out some older photos for new ones, but the frames are finally off the floor and on the walls.
And for anyone who's wondering -- the kids don't touch the frames at all. They were curious at first, but I don't think they're that interesting to them. Though for the first week they were up, Reese would stop and point out everyone she knew on the wall -- "thas gramma, thas papa, thas nana gray" (her great grandmother that she calls nana gray since she has gray hair...) it was cuteness times infinity.
Blank Walls
If you've been following me on Instagram you've seen a bit of a progression with our informal dining room. Our house has an open floor plan. As in literally wide open. The kitchen, dining area and living room are a giant rectangle. Off of our informal dining room is a sunroom that is serving as a first floor playroom for now.
Even though this house is about twice the size of our last house our list of things we need to purchase is suprisingly small. All we needed (and I use the term need very, very loosely since we could clearly live without all of this stuff) was furniture for the nursery, a loveseat for the living room and a new dining room table. Everything else was packed into our old house. This house doesn't have more rooms, just one additional bedroom and one additional bathroom. The spaces in this house are bigger and the whole house has a much better flow, making it more livable. Our old house had so much wasted space. It drove me nuts.
My main focus since moving here has been on the nursery. But since we spend most of the time in "the great room" I've been itching to get the furniture arrangement down. When I found out we were hosting Easter it was all the impetus I needed to repurpose our old buffet and get started on our dining room table. Our current dining room table is a 42" round number from Tarjay. It has served us well for the last 8 years.
When I was working with the architect to design our home I had visions of a long table that would sit underneath a beautiful lantern and seat our entire family for holiday meals and gatherings. This is some of what was in my head...
Our table arrived yesterday and I'm pretty thrilled with it. I designed it myself and then worked with a local salvage yard to have it built. The table weighs a jillion pounds. Gorgeous old wood. Here's a crummy iPhone picture of what things look like now.
I am saving up for this lantern, although my experiences with the company for other lights in our house have left me without a warm and fuzzy, so I may find something more awesome and less wallet breaking. For now a "looks better than I thought it would" $35 chandy from Lowe's is serving its purpose.
On one side of the informal dining room is the sunroom which serves as the kids' playroom for now. On the other side is a wall that is adjacent to our staircase. I've been scratching my head for what to do with this wall. The table isn't centered on it, it's actually centered on the opening of the sunroom, which kind of throws off my sense of balance.
Initially I thought I'd do a gallery wall. My love for gallery walls runs deep, as is evidenced by our old living room and hallway. They are a beautiful headache those things. And since I don't have a lot of time for headaches, I thought I'd just redo our living room gallery exactly.
And because clearly I have too much free time on my hands today, I mocked it up in photoshop.
My next thought was to reuse the frames and start from scratch. This was sort of my vision for the new wall. Although tiny hands will surely teach me a lesson if I run photos up and down like that...
I think I am going to recreate our stairwell gallery or redo it entirely in the upstairs landing. And since our guest bedroom will have a sort of gallery wall that hides the wall mounted TV. That's really probably all of the gallery wallin' I should do, right there. So perhaps a dining room gallery is superfluous, no? But it does look purty. And it would be done in like 30 minutes flat. So that's always nice.
Another thought was a plate wall. Which is sort of a gallery wall, I guess. But it's plates people, so clearly not the same thing. (Right?) And while I would love to spend my weekends antiquing in search of beautiful transferware, I see this as being a never ending project. Plus, I'm not sure if a plate of walls in a dining room doesn't seem obvious.
I also thought about oversized canvases. I saw this photo and thought it could be awesome, but I wonder if it's not better suited for our living room. And perhaps instead of three separate canvases, one larger canvas might be nicer in there. Or two stacked.
But now we're clearly talking about the living room and not the dining room. Although since it's just one big room there is maybe a need to have them be interconnected. I am so not ready to think about the living room right now though.
Then there's always straight up art, like a pair of abstract canvases. Or an oversized print. These abstract pieces are from Horchow, but I'd bet my bottom dollar you could find something nicer, cheaper and more original on Etsy.
And this piece makes me just want to go on vacation and never come back. Especially since we're still experiencing winter in April.
{ via }
And since I've already mentioned the living room, I think I would want to do art art like those examples on the large wall in that room instead of in the dining room. Ten bucks says I cave and redo our old gallery wall before Sunday.
Before I attend to the four loads of laundry that clearly won't fold themselves, I'll leave you with these pretties. Also known as my inspiration for the living room I am "not ready to think about yet". Ha.
Even though this house is about twice the size of our last house our list of things we need to purchase is suprisingly small. All we needed (and I use the term need very, very loosely since we could clearly live without all of this stuff) was furniture for the nursery, a loveseat for the living room and a new dining room table. Everything else was packed into our old house. This house doesn't have more rooms, just one additional bedroom and one additional bathroom. The spaces in this house are bigger and the whole house has a much better flow, making it more livable. Our old house had so much wasted space. It drove me nuts.
My main focus since moving here has been on the nursery. But since we spend most of the time in "the great room" I've been itching to get the furniture arrangement down. When I found out we were hosting Easter it was all the impetus I needed to repurpose our old buffet and get started on our dining room table. Our current dining room table is a 42" round number from Tarjay. It has served us well for the last 8 years.
When I was working with the architect to design our home I had visions of a long table that would sit underneath a beautiful lantern and seat our entire family for holiday meals and gatherings. This is some of what was in my head...
Our table arrived yesterday and I'm pretty thrilled with it. I designed it myself and then worked with a local salvage yard to have it built. The table weighs a jillion pounds. Gorgeous old wood. Here's a crummy iPhone picture of what things look like now.
I am saving up for this lantern, although my experiences with the company for other lights in our house have left me without a warm and fuzzy, so I may find something more awesome and less wallet breaking. For now a "looks better than I thought it would" $35 chandy from Lowe's is serving its purpose.
On one side of the informal dining room is the sunroom which serves as the kids' playroom for now. On the other side is a wall that is adjacent to our staircase. I've been scratching my head for what to do with this wall. The table isn't centered on it, it's actually centered on the opening of the sunroom, which kind of throws off my sense of balance.
Initially I thought I'd do a gallery wall. My love for gallery walls runs deep, as is evidenced by our old living room and hallway. They are a beautiful headache those things. And since I don't have a lot of time for headaches, I thought I'd just redo our living room gallery exactly.
And because clearly I have too much free time on my hands today, I mocked it up in photoshop.
My next thought was to reuse the frames and start from scratch. This was sort of my vision for the new wall. Although tiny hands will surely teach me a lesson if I run photos up and down like that...
I think I am going to recreate our stairwell gallery or redo it entirely in the upstairs landing. And since our guest bedroom will have a sort of gallery wall that hides the wall mounted TV. That's really probably all of the gallery wallin' I should do, right there. So perhaps a dining room gallery is superfluous, no? But it does look purty. And it would be done in like 30 minutes flat. So that's always nice.
Another thought was a plate wall. Which is sort of a gallery wall, I guess. But it's plates people, so clearly not the same thing. (Right?) And while I would love to spend my weekends antiquing in search of beautiful transferware, I see this as being a never ending project. Plus, I'm not sure if a plate of walls in a dining room doesn't seem obvious.
I also thought about oversized canvases. I saw this photo and thought it could be awesome, but I wonder if it's not better suited for our living room. And perhaps instead of three separate canvases, one larger canvas might be nicer in there. Or two stacked.
But now we're clearly talking about the living room and not the dining room. Although since it's just one big room there is maybe a need to have them be interconnected. I am so not ready to think about the living room right now though.
Then there's always straight up art, like a pair of abstract canvases. Or an oversized print. These abstract pieces are from Horchow, but I'd bet my bottom dollar you could find something nicer, cheaper and more original on Etsy.
And this piece makes me just want to go on vacation and never come back. Especially since we're still experiencing winter in April.
{ via }
And since I've already mentioned the living room, I think I would want to do art art like those examples on the large wall in that room instead of in the dining room. Ten bucks says I cave and redo our old gallery wall before Sunday.
Before I attend to the four loads of laundry that clearly won't fold themselves, I'll leave you with these pretties. Also known as my inspiration for the living room I am "not ready to think about yet". Ha.
Nursery Progress
I am feeling some major mom guilt that Baby Lala is over 5 months old and I still haven't finished her room. Everything takes so much damn time. It's craziness. I brought the twins home to a fully decked out nursery. This kid has been living with nothing but a crib sheet and even that took me three months to have in hand.
Anyway, I kicked it into high gear this week and ordered her draperies. I wanted to also order her crib skirt and bumpers, but the skirt fabric was discontinued (of course it was, because I finally made up my mind) so the workroom is trying to track down a remnant from the manufacturer to make this happen for me. Fingers crossed.
Here are some (iPhone) pics of what it's looking like in there now...
The previously turquoise dresser needs a few more coats of wax (more on this DI-why?! another day) and then I need to remount the mirror. The daybed is actually going to be Ryan's big boy bed, but we're storing it in the nursery for now. So for now, pretend Reese's bed is built. That sloppy mess of crumpled fabric is me elegantly modeling her unbuilt headboard to see how it was all going to look.
We hung some sunburst mirrors and I finally gave up on my search for a dresser/hutch combo that would fit the space and settled on a dresser/bookcase piece instead for the other side of the room. I'm happy the hunt is over and my need for more drawer storage, display space and a place to put all of their bed-night books is solved. Win-win.
I also picked up a pair of antique child chairs ($30 for the pair!). Joe is going to cut 2" off of the legs making them slightly more toddler friendly and I need to clean them up and reupholster the seats. I plan on getting the girls this little PBK table eventually. The bookcase thing just got here today, so forgive the lack of anything on the shelves. I don't know how to style shelves anyway and I am clutterphobic. But hopefully they'll look better than this someday.
I have plans to paint the back of the bookcase mushroom gray because it is not the nicest quality of non-wood out there and I think it will help it look fancy schmancier. Hopefully I am not wrong in that assessment.
The curtains will be just decorative panels with an inverted pleat in this fabric. I ordered flat roman shades which are the color of the walls when we first moved. Those should be ready for installation early next week. I found box pleated ribbon for the leading edge of the drapes and I am going to apply it myself to save some moolah. So that will be done by the time the girls are in kindergarten and first grade, respectively.
The art for above Reese's bed came in last week and I love it to pieces. I'm going to pick up some Ribba frames for it next month when I'm swinging by Ikea and those will also be painted in mushroom gray. I think these little touches will help balance out all the lavender and white.
I still need to find pretty, but not overly expensive, swing arm sconces that fit the bill. And then dare I say it, we may be kind of, almost done.
Lola seemed to really enjoy her new digs when we sat and admired her space today.
Gah! Baby toes. I just want to eat them. And how about that hair? It's not easy to pull off nearly bald, you know. Girlfriend is sleeping in her undecorated room 7-8 hours per night. Clearly she is unfettered by my lack of progress.
Anyway, I kicked it into high gear this week and ordered her draperies. I wanted to also order her crib skirt and bumpers, but the skirt fabric was discontinued (of course it was, because I finally made up my mind) so the workroom is trying to track down a remnant from the manufacturer to make this happen for me. Fingers crossed.
Here are some (iPhone) pics of what it's looking like in there now...
The previously turquoise dresser needs a few more coats of wax (more on this DI-why?! another day) and then I need to remount the mirror. The daybed is actually going to be Ryan's big boy bed, but we're storing it in the nursery for now. So for now, pretend Reese's bed is built. That sloppy mess of crumpled fabric is me elegantly modeling her unbuilt headboard to see how it was all going to look.
We hung some sunburst mirrors and I finally gave up on my search for a dresser/hutch combo that would fit the space and settled on a dresser/bookcase piece instead for the other side of the room. I'm happy the hunt is over and my need for more drawer storage, display space and a place to put all of their bed-night books is solved. Win-win.
I also picked up a pair of antique child chairs ($30 for the pair!). Joe is going to cut 2" off of the legs making them slightly more toddler friendly and I need to clean them up and reupholster the seats. I plan on getting the girls this little PBK table eventually. The bookcase thing just got here today, so forgive the lack of anything on the shelves. I don't know how to style shelves anyway and I am clutterphobic. But hopefully they'll look better than this someday.
I have plans to paint the back of the bookcase mushroom gray because it is not the nicest quality of non-wood out there and I think it will help it look fancy schmancier. Hopefully I am not wrong in that assessment.
The curtains will be just decorative panels with an inverted pleat in this fabric. I ordered flat roman shades which are the color of the walls when we first moved. Those should be ready for installation early next week. I found box pleated ribbon for the leading edge of the drapes and I am going to apply it myself to save some moolah. So that will be done by the time the girls are in kindergarten and first grade, respectively.
The art for above Reese's bed came in last week and I love it to pieces. I'm going to pick up some Ribba frames for it next month when I'm swinging by Ikea and those will also be painted in mushroom gray. I think these little touches will help balance out all the lavender and white.
I still need to find pretty, but not overly expensive, swing arm sconces that fit the bill. And then dare I say it, we may be kind of, almost done.
Lola seemed to really enjoy her new digs when we sat and admired her space today.
Gah! Baby toes. I just want to eat them. And how about that hair? It's not easy to pull off nearly bald, you know. Girlfriend is sleeping in her undecorated room 7-8 hours per night. Clearly she is unfettered by my lack of progress.
Feeling Blue
I don't know if you know this about me, but I'm an incredibly indecisive person. If I'm making a decision for your life, I know the right answer immediately. If I'm making a decision for my life, I labor over everything for...sometimes years. It's honestly painful.
Two fabrics, including custom colored pieces I spent a few weeks designing on Spoonflower are either here or on their way here for the nursery. I'm having issues with that dang shade of lavender, but I'm working with it. And, I really like the plan I have in my head.
While feeding the baby on Saturday I was killing time perusing Craigslist and came across a dresser that was too pretty. The lines, the hardware. Love. So I emailed the seller and we went to go see it yesterday. That dresser is now in the nursery. Except it's turquoise. Or teal. Or a moody blue.
My plan when I saw it online was to repaint it mushroom or white. Except I put it in that fricking room and it's so gosh darn pretty that I'm rethinking everything. I hate it when that happens.
The first thing that popped into my head when we put that dresser in there was this nursery I pinned a few weeks ago.
I love the boho chic that is this little room. But it's not me. The second thing I thought of was this fabric. Oh this silly, stupid fabric that I first spotted in Southern Living a few years ago after the collapse of Cottage Living (when all of the CL editors switched publications for a millisecond).
Gorgeous. So gorgeous. And more expensive than all three of my IVF conceived children combined. Damn you, stupid gorgeous fabric.
So I'm thinking I may keep the turquoise dresser as it is and change literally everything in the room with the exception of the crib and the chair. Or I may not. I can't decide if turquoise and navy would work for a nursery/little girl's room. I personally love it. But is it feminine and childlike enough? Probably not. Would they grow into it? Maybe.
I've been pinning turquoise and navy inspirations here and the lavender and greige here, if anyone is interested or cares to weigh in. I'll probably be up googling fabrics till random hours in the morning this week. Maybe Lola's room will be done before she goes to college? Maybe not.
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Duh, contracted some version of ebola this week and have pink eyes. Four of them. We were at the urgent care until 10 last night. My twinkies have a knack for getting ridiculously ill when the pediatrician's office is going to be closed for several days in a row. So while my kids are home sick and off of school and activities anyway for President's Week, I'll be laying low.
Seriously, have you ever seen two sickies happier to be at urgent care? You'd have thought I took them to Disney World. Enjoy the holiday week, if you have off for such tomfoolery.
And before I forget! For those of you that asked, here are the files for the onesies. I took the liberty of flipping the images for you, so all you have to do is open and print. Let me know if the links give you trouble, I am sometimes a little special when it comes to sharing files.
Happy Crafting!
Two fabrics, including custom colored pieces I spent a few weeks designing on Spoonflower are either here or on their way here for the nursery. I'm having issues with that dang shade of lavender, but I'm working with it. And, I really like the plan I have in my head.
While feeding the baby on Saturday I was killing time perusing Craigslist and came across a dresser that was too pretty. The lines, the hardware. Love. So I emailed the seller and we went to go see it yesterday. That dresser is now in the nursery. Except it's turquoise. Or teal. Or a moody blue.
My plan when I saw it online was to repaint it mushroom or white. Except I put it in that fricking room and it's so gosh darn pretty that I'm rethinking everything. I hate it when that happens.
The first thing that popped into my head when we put that dresser in there was this nursery I pinned a few weeks ago.
I love the boho chic that is this little room. But it's not me. The second thing I thought of was this fabric. Oh this silly, stupid fabric that I first spotted in Southern Living a few years ago after the collapse of Cottage Living (when all of the CL editors switched publications for a millisecond).
Gorgeous. So gorgeous. And more expensive than all three of my IVF conceived children combined. Damn you, stupid gorgeous fabric.
So I'm thinking I may keep the turquoise dresser as it is and change literally everything in the room with the exception of the crib and the chair. Or I may not. I can't decide if turquoise and navy would work for a nursery/little girl's room. I personally love it. But is it feminine and childlike enough? Probably not. Would they grow into it? Maybe.
I've been pinning turquoise and navy inspirations here and the lavender and greige here, if anyone is interested or cares to weigh in. I'll probably be up googling fabrics till random hours in the morning this week. Maybe Lola's room will be done before she goes to college? Maybe not.
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Duh, contracted some version of ebola this week and have pink eyes. Four of them. We were at the urgent care until 10 last night. My twinkies have a knack for getting ridiculously ill when the pediatrician's office is going to be closed for several days in a row. So while my kids are home sick and off of school and activities anyway for President's Week, I'll be laying low.
Seriously, have you ever seen two sickies happier to be at urgent care? You'd have thought I took them to Disney World. Enjoy the holiday week, if you have off for such tomfoolery.
And before I forget! For those of you that asked, here are the files for the onesies. I took the liberty of flipping the images for you, so all you have to do is open and print. Let me know if the links give you trouble, I am sometimes a little special when it comes to sharing files.
Happy Crafting!
Mo Pendants, Mo Problems
Okay friends, I need to enlist your help. We recently sent our kitchen pendants back to Visual Comfort to have them shortened. When we were building our house I had an appointment to meet our electrician at 8 a.m. to go over the lighting. When I got here our pendants were already cut and mounted and I was told "I hope you like them, because they were a bitch to put in and I'm not changing them." So I lived with them. But really they were way too long, and our electrician is a nincompoop for so many reasons related to our house and I'm fixing it now as I go.
I've been hemming and hawing about how short to take the lights. You can always make something shorter, but once the nickel is cut, well end of story. But taking them down and shipping them to Georgia and paying for custom cutting isn't exactly cheap. So...I'd like to get it right this time.
Here are the lights installed at 42" long, or 30" off the island surface, before we took them down.
Initially I was going to have them shortened to 36" (also 36" off the island surface) but now I'm not sure that's short enough. So I did what any type-a, indecisive person would do. I bought two pendants from Lowe's and installed them so I could play with the height and make a decision.
...And now we are a house divided. So, what say you, friends? The pendant on the left (which has our shade on it) at 36" long, or the pendant on the right at 33" long?
{ Joe, 6' tall, is standing on the ground in this pic }
{ Joe is standing on a stool here }
Surely my husband's favorite thing to do on a Friday night is install lights we're not keeping and play Vanna White so I can stare at home decor for hours on end. He LOVESSS it. I'll be lucky if he doesn't hit me with a pendant and bury me in the backyard before the weekend is over.
Thanks for your input!
I've been hemming and hawing about how short to take the lights. You can always make something shorter, but once the nickel is cut, well end of story. But taking them down and shipping them to Georgia and paying for custom cutting isn't exactly cheap. So...I'd like to get it right this time.
Here are the lights installed at 42" long, or 30" off the island surface, before we took them down.
Initially I was going to have them shortened to 36" (also 36" off the island surface) but now I'm not sure that's short enough. So I did what any type-a, indecisive person would do. I bought two pendants from Lowe's and installed them so I could play with the height and make a decision.
...And now we are a house divided. So, what say you, friends? The pendant on the left (which has our shade on it) at 36" long, or the pendant on the right at 33" long?
{ Joe, 6' tall, is standing on the ground in this pic }
{ Joe is standing on a stool here }
Surely my husband's favorite thing to do on a Friday night is install lights we're not keeping and play Vanna White so I can stare at home decor for hours on end. He LOVESSS it. I'll be lucky if he doesn't hit me with a pendant and bury me in the backyard before the weekend is over.
Thanks for your input!
Shared Bedroom Progress
I nailed down furniture placement for the girls' bedroom. Reese's crib doesn't convert into a toddler bed, something I was sure I wouldn't want when we were buying cribs. Now that we are facing the crib-to-bed transition I kind of wish it did, just so they were still in "their beds". I feel like it would make the transition easier. Anyhow, Ryan will be transitioning to a daybed which we already have and Reese will be transitioning to a toddler bed. Joe is building her a toddler platform bed so that I can do an upholstered headboard for her.
Keeping Reese in a toddler bed allows me to create a nice play space in the girls' bedroom. This is the floor plan I came up with after moving stuff around in their room last week. I was surprised at how much space two twin beds take up in that room. I have a plan for when they are big, big girls. But I'll cross that bridge when we get there.
I bought Lola's crib while I was pregnant and so that is currently in place and I'm repurposing some baskets I had elsewhere in our old house so that the girls have additional storage for things like bedding and pillows. Lola's crib sheets came in this week too and I loveeee them so much. Worth the wait for sure.
One of the kooky things that I insisted on having our builder do for us in this house was dutch doors on the kids' bedrooms. It took some finagling, but he made them happen and they are one of my favorite things about this house.
The girls' chair also came in -- I ordered it on Overstock and the reviews warned that the chair was small and it is petite. If it was for any other room in our house I would have cried over the cost to ship it back for sure. But for a little girls room it is *perfect*.
I'm struggling to find a dresser/bookcase combo for their room. I thought that would be the easiest thing to find. I have 42" of wall space to work with, which makes it harder as most dressers with hutches are closer to 60". It doesn't help that I refuse to spend $1000+ on a piece of furniture for a child's room.
I realize it's just a crib and a chair in an otherwise empty room, but I'm pretty excited about it. I think it will really start looking sweet once their window treatments are installed and Lola's crib is made up.
Keeping Reese in a toddler bed allows me to create a nice play space in the girls' bedroom. This is the floor plan I came up with after moving stuff around in their room last week. I was surprised at how much space two twin beds take up in that room. I have a plan for when they are big, big girls. But I'll cross that bridge when we get there.
I bought Lola's crib while I was pregnant and so that is currently in place and I'm repurposing some baskets I had elsewhere in our old house so that the girls have additional storage for things like bedding and pillows. Lola's crib sheets came in this week too and I loveeee them so much. Worth the wait for sure.
One of the kooky things that I insisted on having our builder do for us in this house was dutch doors on the kids' bedrooms. It took some finagling, but he made them happen and they are one of my favorite things about this house.
The girls' chair also came in -- I ordered it on Overstock and the reviews warned that the chair was small and it is petite. If it was for any other room in our house I would have cried over the cost to ship it back for sure. But for a little girls room it is *perfect*.
I'm struggling to find a dresser/bookcase combo for their room. I thought that would be the easiest thing to find. I have 42" of wall space to work with, which makes it harder as most dressers with hutches are closer to 60". It doesn't help that I refuse to spend $1000+ on a piece of furniture for a child's room.
I realize it's just a crib and a chair in an otherwise empty room, but I'm pretty excited about it. I think it will really start looking sweet once their window treatments are installed and Lola's crib is made up.
Reese and Lauren's Shared Room
I had an entirely different plan for Reese and Lauren's shared room, and then Joe's Nana sent us a crocheted blanket in the mail. She has knitted one for each of our kids. Lauren's was lavender. It is my most favorite color and it is so very her. And so my plans changed.
I started with the baby's crib sheet -- a Serena and Lily pattern called heather florentine. Of course, as soon as I decided that this was the starting point for their room I found out that the pattern had been discontinued two years ago.
After four months of searching, I tracked down two sheets that were part of a larger (also discontinued) crib set at a baby boutique in San Francisco. I convinced (and by convinced, I mean begged and pleaded) them to break apart the sets and sell me the two sheets a la carte.
The sheets should arrive in the mail later today.
Now that the plan is in place I can start putting the pieces together little by little. A few things have already started to get here and I feel so happy seeing their room come together. We have been in the house for a little over a month and it feels like a house and not a home. Having a special place for my babies to sleep is my first part in making this house feel like ours.
Not for the faint of heart
We found out on Wednesday that our builder took out a line of credit to finance another one of his projects and used our house as collateral (completely legal and within his right to do). As a result, there was a lien against our house. The loan pay off, lot release and mortgage release forms had not been completed or signed off on and, accordingly, we would not be able to close on Thursday as planned. (Six weeks after our initially scheduled closing date, by the way.)
After dropping off the kids at preschool, Joe and I drove to the company that held the line of credit and sat in the CFO's office while she drew up and signed off on the paperwork clearing our builder's loan. Our attorney spent the day chasing down title information. Our bank still hadn't provided a turn around time for closing.
Due to staffing issues at our bank and with our builder's attorneys we found out that both were too short staffed to close yesterday so even though we ran our asses off getting the paperwork cleared, we had no choice but to ride it out in the hotel again through the weekend. Fantastic. Regardless, I'm glad we did the legwork because had we not, I swear we wouldn't have had all the pieces in place to close for another week to ten days. People were *snail mailing* each other documents when their buildings were less than 3 miles away from one another. Our presence in so many offices encouraged the use of couriers and sped things up considerably.
It has been clear throughout this process that our closing was only an emergency to us (duh). But sitting in someone's office and explaining to them that you are living out of a hotel with 3 kids under 2 makes people a lot more compassionate.
By the time our bank got their poop together with wire transfer information and clearances, we had missed the ability to schedule a closing for Monday. Perhaps they would have been more expeditious had they been the ones footing the bill for our extended stay hotel, but I digress. Anyway, our closing is officially set for Tuesday morning. This whole experience has honestly been a nightmare. As a type-a, get it done kind of person, feeling helpless is not my forte. I'm not typically emotional, but I broke down crying several times this week. I blame the postpartum hormones.
We did our final walk through last night and except for a few very small, very insignificant punch list items, the house looks great and we're thrilled with the end result. Now my priority is getting us unpacked as quickly as possible so that we can get the house ready for the holidays. For a while there I thought we'd be spending Christmas in an extended stay hotel.
Bye-Bye Belvedere
We closed on our house yesterday. The end of our ownership was drama llama with annoying questions from our buyers mixed with their refusal to rent back to us through the end of the month, making us homeless. We lost money on the house. We lost patience with each other. And at the end, I felt happy to get rid of that ridiculous house and move on with our lives.
On Tuesday I picked the kids up from preschool, the movers were at our house loading up our stuff after packing what little was left unpacked on Monday. I brought the kids inside for lunch without giving it much thought. Reese ran through the door and thought the wide open space and ability to make her voice echo was pretty stinking awesome. She ran wildly up and down the hallways screaming like a banshee. Ryan walked in, saw the empty rooms and headed straight for the stairs. He climbed to the top and ran into his room. To the spot that his crib used to be, then to where his rocking chair used to be and then to where his bedtime books were on the wall. And as he ran from spot to spot panic started to set in and within minutes he was hysterical.
With all of the craziness of moving, getting us packed and loaded, finding us a place to live in the interim, etc. I forgot, for a moment, that this was the house we brought our babies home to. All I saw were carpets with stains on them that needed to be shampooed again. I didn't see that those spots were from my babies' sippy cups, from all of the mornings and nights they dropped to the floor, rolled to their backs and drank their milk while I tickled their toes. The scuffs on their wall was from the rocker brushing against it while I read them bedtime books. The scratches on the floor were from the kids chasing Gracie.
I certainly forgot that this empty house might have a profound effect on them, even though I've lost sleep over how hard the transition to the new house would be. So I found myself sitting on the floor of my empty bedroom, holding my bony boy, comforting him as I reassured myself that the new house was a much better space to grow up in and that he'd forget all about this empty house soon enough.
Six years of our life took place in that house. I walked down those stairs on my wedding day. We cried of the loss of our first baby in that living room. We brought home the next three to that same space. From the celebration of Lauren's gender to the twins' first birthday to the monthly girl's night ins and the annual Pumpkin Parties we hosted, our dining room was quite the party space.
I can say, with certainty, that I won't miss this house. I will miss the wall of R's my sister and I made for the nursery and hearing Reese point out all of her family members on our gallery wall each night as we walk up the stairs for bedtime. But I never loved this house (not like our very first house, which I loved from the moment I laid eyes on it) and we outgrew it so very long ago. I am thankful for the memories we made here, and I cannot wait to make new ones in the house that will hopefully hold my family until they leave to make lives of their own.
On Tuesday I picked the kids up from preschool, the movers were at our house loading up our stuff after packing what little was left unpacked on Monday. I brought the kids inside for lunch without giving it much thought. Reese ran through the door and thought the wide open space and ability to make her voice echo was pretty stinking awesome. She ran wildly up and down the hallways screaming like a banshee. Ryan walked in, saw the empty rooms and headed straight for the stairs. He climbed to the top and ran into his room. To the spot that his crib used to be, then to where his rocking chair used to be and then to where his bedtime books were on the wall. And as he ran from spot to spot panic started to set in and within minutes he was hysterical.
With all of the craziness of moving, getting us packed and loaded, finding us a place to live in the interim, etc. I forgot, for a moment, that this was the house we brought our babies home to. All I saw were carpets with stains on them that needed to be shampooed again. I didn't see that those spots were from my babies' sippy cups, from all of the mornings and nights they dropped to the floor, rolled to their backs and drank their milk while I tickled their toes. The scuffs on their wall was from the rocker brushing against it while I read them bedtime books. The scratches on the floor were from the kids chasing Gracie.
I certainly forgot that this empty house might have a profound effect on them, even though I've lost sleep over how hard the transition to the new house would be. So I found myself sitting on the floor of my empty bedroom, holding my bony boy, comforting him as I reassured myself that the new house was a much better space to grow up in and that he'd forget all about this empty house soon enough.
Six years of our life took place in that house. I walked down those stairs on my wedding day. We cried of the loss of our first baby in that living room. We brought home the next three to that same space. From the celebration of Lauren's gender to the twins' first birthday to the monthly girl's night ins and the annual Pumpkin Parties we hosted, our dining room was quite the party space.
I can say, with certainty, that I won't miss this house. I will miss the wall of R's my sister and I made for the nursery and hearing Reese point out all of her family members on our gallery wall each night as we walk up the stairs for bedtime. But I never loved this house (not like our very first house, which I loved from the moment I laid eyes on it) and we outgrew it so very long ago. I am thankful for the memories we made here, and I cannot wait to make new ones in the house that will hopefully hold my family until they leave to make lives of their own.
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